Homily: 12th Week of Ordinary Time - Tuesday - Two ways, of life and death

Jesus speaks of two gates, one that leads to destruction, the other that leads to life.  The theme of two ways, one of life, the other of death is taken up often in Scripture and in the writings of the saints.

Saint Paul often talks about the way of the flesh versus the way of the spirit.  The very first lines of the Didache—a first century text also known as “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” are, “There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two ways.”

In the early 5th century St. Augustine wrote a book called The City of God about this conflict between the City of Man and the City of God--the City of Man consisting of people who stray from God—and the City of God consisting of those who forego earthly pleasure, and dedicate themselves to the promotion of Christian Virtues.  Two ways, two cities.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen often made the distinction between the way of the ego and the way of the true self.  Do are busy about indulging our egos or nurturing our true self.

iBishop Sheen says, “When someone has thus made the orbit of his life a movement around Christ, instead of his own ego, the thoughts he thinks, the desires that inflame him, the motivations of all his actions is centrered in Our Divine Lord.”

In our own day Blessed Pope John Paul II was fond of making the same distinction--between the culture of life and the culture of death.   The root of the difference between the two cultures was the use of human freedom.  Do I use my freedom to seek and serve God or to selfishly serve myself.

  In the culture of death, human freedom is abused through moral depravity, man lives as if God did not exist, "the sense of God is lost," and the sense of man's own dignity is lost as well.

On the other hand, when when the ego diminishes, and our freedom is aimed at serving God in all things, we cooperate with God in building the culture of life.  In the saints we see the true flourishing of human freedom, and the emergence of the true self.

We pray that the Eucharist we celebrate today will help us to committ to building the culture of life through all of our words, decisions, and actions today for the glory of God and salvation of souls.